Keep You Closer (Can't Let Go)
by TutorGirlml
Summary: Post 6x11 one shot; Finally returned to her home, her family, and to Killian, Emma has to assure herself he's really there. This time, the world's going to give them a moment to soothe each other's souls.


" _Keep You Closer (Can't Let Go)"_

 _By: TutorGirlml_

 _So, I had all but the last little bit written before last night's episode, and it really doesn't have anything to do with 6x12. Other than the fact that I'm slow posting it, this is a post 6x11 one shot, and is picking up almost from the very end of that episode, minus the sidetrack to August's typing shed. Anyway, I just needed them to have a moment of private reunion. Captain Swan all the way, and no, I still don't own them, but I would love to hear what you think once you've read this…_

 _(The lyrics at the beginning and end are from Florida Georgia Line's song "H.O.L.Y." and my first listen of that song is what actually gave me the idea for this fic with its little line about "…healing hands where it used to hurt…")_

" _I couldn't find a day, I didn't feel alone_

 _I never meant to cry, started losin' hope_

 _But somehow baby,_

 _You broke through and saved me_

 _You're an angel, tell me you're never leavin'_

' _Cause you're the first thing I've found I can believe in…"_

After the commotion on the street subsides, the hooded figure from her vision has disappeared (Gold and Belle's son, as it turns out, because – of course it is, why not?!) and her pulse stops hammering in her ears, Emma Swan finds that she is still genuinely hard pressed to loosen her grip on either her son or her pirate. She finds that she has to a bit though, as Henry is starting to squirm and complain good naturedly that he's glad to see her too, but he still needs to breathe, her father is jostling in, needing to hold his daughter for a moment as well and reassure himself of her return, and none of them can make it home for the night clasped in an awkward four-way hug as they are.

Of course, once that initial embrace of adrenaline-fueled relief and joy is broken, there is much to do – as there always is. They have to figure out where Gideon might have vanished and if there's an immediate danger from him, if they should track Gold down and try to force answers from him, and they also need to try to acclimate this new, different version of Robin to what must seem to him a strangely cockeyed modern world. When everyone has been introduced to him though, Emma is willing to leave that to a still flushed, rather wide-eyed Regina. For a moment – and she tugs on Killian's hand, shooting him a look he returns knowingly, giving her the sense he gets exactly what she is thinking with his affectionate smile – she wants to tease their mayor about 'yearning looks and doe-y eyes', but she holds back. The former Queen has not had her actual True Love himself returned to her, but rather some sort of alternate copy, and that is going to be more than enough for the other woman to shoulder. While Regina may be due some good natured ribbing in return for past snark, Emma can't find it in her heart to dish it out just now.

She wants to speak to August as well, but that will keep for tomorrow; now she wants nothing more than to go home and hold her family close. They all troop back to the house by the water, stumbling exhausted up their front steps. David at last reluctantly parts ways with them to relieve Granny of babysitting duty and check on her younger brother. Emma promises they will come for a late lunch the next day and seriously discuss what they're going to do to right her parents' curse once and for all. It is long overdue for their focus, and she sees it in her father's weariness and heavy heart.

She relishes another tight hug from him with his hand cradling the back of her head. It lends more comfort than she would readily admit after just being in a realm where he was gone and she could never have such an embrace again. Her heart warms with gratitude once more to know that alternate world wasn't real, wasn't permanent, as she watches her dad head off down the street to his and her mom's loft apartment.

Wearily, after stepping into the house with her True Loves, she shucks her leather jacket in the entryway, offering a faint smile of thanks to Henry as he wordlessly takes it from her to hang on the hooks by the door. When he comes back and hugs her tightly, clinging for a few moments in a way he hasn't for quite some times, tears start in her eyes for her brave, goodhearted boy swiftly becoming a man before her eyes. She holds onto him just as tightly, swaying back and forth and murmuring soothing words under her breath. She's just thinking that he will love to hear about his Wish Realm self – a newly minted knight and prince of the kingdom riding out on quests wherever he is needed – when, with a sheepish grin and a surreptitious snuffle, Henry seems to want a bit of space to recover himself. "I'm gonna go call Violet and let her know you're back. She was worried about you too," Henry says. And then he's gone – clumping up the stairs all big feet and overlong, lanky limbs; the thumps from the floor overhead still sounding until they hear the muffled thud of his bedroom doom close.

Shaking his head as if pleasantly amused by the lad's exuberance and changeable teenage moods, Killian is swift to take her hand and lead her forward into the living room. He doesn't have to do much urging to get her worn, dazed self to settle in the corner of the couch where she usually snuggles up, but she does shoot forward again and start to protest when he kneels before her and starts to remove her boots. "Killian, stop! You don't have to – "

But he gives her a terse shake of the head, searching her eyes with his encompassing gaze as he catches her hands reaching forward to halt him and brings them to his lips, pressing kisses to her knuckles. "Let me, Swan… _Emma_ …please. I didn't know where you were…what was happening to you… Just let me do this?"

Sighing, she deflates, allowing him his way in whatever offers him a modicum of comfort and normalcy. In truth, she is so glad to be with him again, here together in their home, that in itself is enough to relax her nearly into slumber.

She closes her eyes for a moment, resting her head against the back of the couch, and savoring the feel of his strong hands caressing her aching feet as he bares them, wishing they could always be this close – that the world outside would finally leave them alone for even a few hours at once. Reaching her hand out sleepily, she runs her fingers through his dark hair, urging him up close enough to kiss fully and then mumbling against his lips, "Come here Pirate. I need to feel you next to me."

As requested, Killian is beside her in an instant, but before he can wrap her up in his arms and lull her sufficiently into a much-needed sleep, Emma stills him, reaching out herself to trace his beloved features, once more looking as she has come to know them. She smooths a shock of his coarse fringe back off his forehead, lovingly stroking the strands for a moment as if they are great treasure.

Her fingers move on to dance over his temple and the bridge of his nose, and for a moment her pirate's brow quirks in puzzlement, wondering what she is doing, but not willing to speak or break this quiet spell between them. As her fingertips trace the old healed cut high on one cheekbone and then the outline of his full, strong mouth, his eyes slip closed; relaxing under her ministrations much as she had done with his minutes before, surrendering himself to her need to touch, to assure herself that he is right within her reach.

Emma can't quit touching him. She needs the warm, soft feel of his skin beneath her hands as assurance that she won't blink and find him taken from her again. It's only when her small, deft hands slip inside his half unbuttoned shirt, and Killian feels her caressing each mark and brand, outlining each muscle and sinew, that he senses something else has happened beyond their painful separation, something that she is now trying to convince herself is over – or wasn't real at all – through feeling as well as sight, by cataloguing every dip and curve of him, to make sure he is as he should be.

Still, Killian makes no move to stop her, to ask questions, until Emma undoes the last of the shirt's fastenings, pulls it from his arms and off his torso with breathless help from him, and then presses herself against his bared skin, ear to his pounding heart, face buried in his scarred chest, and he feels a little shudder go through her, the one small outward sign of what he is more and more certain must be some dreadfulness she is hiding.

"What is it, Emma?" he whispers, hand coming up to smooth over her golden fall of hair, now loosed from its near-constant ponytail for the night and hook resting at her hip lightly.

From where she has curled herself nearly into his lap, his princess murmurs against his collarbone, "I don't want to let you go. Just stay here a little longer. Please, Killian?"

The soft, reverent pads of her fingers trace over his skin, scratching through the dark hair across his chest and stomach and around to his shoulders and back, along various marks of floggings, a survived stabbing, burns and the other traces of an abnormally long life full of violence and pain. Yet, as she does so, as those gentle fingers touch the places he still struggles to lay bare, even for her eyes alone, a soothing balm, an air of healing rolls over the scored and mottled skin – reaching both and easing their frayed sanity in each other's presence.

"I'm right here, Love," he manages hoarsely, lips in the soft hair at the crown of her head. "As long as you wish…There's nowhere else I would want to be."

"Good," she husks, the smallest of more normal smiles quirking the corners of her mouth up as she finally stops seeking every inch of him feverishly and wraps her arms around his torso, clearly preparing to settle in for the night.

There is a peaceful stillness between them for several moments before she offers, not looking at him, but still speaking into his skin, disinclined to pull away from her pirate, even for moment. "There was another you…in that realm. And he was…"

She pauses, obviously searching for words, and though Killian is now achingly curious, wondering if that is what has brought on her desperate need to be so close, to examine each detail of him now, he senses a bit of lightness is in order. "And was I still my devilishly handsome self?" he teases.

Her brow arches sardonically at him and she hums in her throat. "In a manner of speaking," she settles on finally. Then her face sobers, and his chest squeezes at the bereft looks that crosses it once again, "but that's just it…you weren't _you_. And seeing you there before me – but not – made me miss you even more. I needed you _– the real you_ – so much it hurt." Her hand inches between their bodies to press against her heart as if holding in the still physical pain.

He takes that hand in his gently and clasps it tight to his own chest. "I am here now, Lass. Trust me, I won't leave you."

"But how long before we're torn apart by something we can't control? Before we lose each other again?" she beseeches plaintively, her voice small and broken, the fear plain in her green eyes.

"It doesn't matter," he says firmly, holding her gaze and blatantly offering the same comfort she gives him with her love and her trust. "Wherever we are sent, whoever tries to separate us, you will always find me. I have faith in that. And, Emma, I will always _always_ find you."

When they both drift off to sleep some minutes later, tangled together in a tight embrace that the worst villain couldn't have unraveled with the most powerful curse, she has chosen to believe it as much as he. That vow, that security, has enveloped and healed them both.

" _You're the healing hands where it used to hurt,_

 _You're my saving grace, you're my kinda church…_

' _Cause you're the first thing I know I can believe in…"_


End file.
